Down With The “King”: Thousands Of Libyans Line Up To See The Bloody Body Of Moammar Gadhafi Laying In A Freezer

Moammar Gadhafi’s blood-streaked body was on display in a commercial freezer at a shopping center as Libyan authorities argued about what to do with his remains and questions deepened over official accounts of the longtime dictator’s death.

Also Friday, new video emerged of his violent, chaotic last moments, showing fighters beating him as they drag him away.

Nearly every aspect of Thursday’s killing of Gadhafi was mired in confusion, a sign of the difficulties ahead for Libya. Its new rulers are disorganized, its people embittered and divided. But the ruling National Transitional Council said it would declare the country’s liberation on Saturday, the starting point for a timetable that calls for a new interim government within a month and elections within eight months.

The top U.N. rights chief raised concerns that Gadhafi may have been shot to death after being captured alive. The fate of his body seemed tied up in squabbles among Libya’s factions, as fighters from Misrata — a city brutally besieged by Gadhafi’s forces during the civil war — seemed to claim ownership of it, forcing the delay of a planned burial Friday.

In Misrata, residents crowded into long lines to get a chance to view the body of Gadhafi, which was laid out on a mattress on the floor of an emptied-out vegetable and onions freezer at a local shopping center. The body had apparently been stowed in the freezer in an attempt to keep it out of the public eye, but once the location was known, that intention was swept away in the overwhelming desire of residents to see the man they so deeply despised.

Men, women and children filed in to take their picture with the body. The site’s guards had even organized separate visiting hours for families and single men.

“We want to see the dog,” some chanted.

Gadhafi’s 69-year-old body was stripped to the waist, his torso and arms streaked with dried blood. Bullet wounds in the chest, abdomen and left side of the head were visible.

Would you have waited in line to see the dead body of your former oppressor?